PLANS for a new town based on world heritage village New Lanark have been unveiled.

Owenstown, located five miles from Lanark, at Rigside, would be home to 20,000 people and could create 8,000 jobs.

The project is being run by the Hometown Foundation and is inspired by social reformer Robert Owen.

He pioneered innovative living and working conditions at the nearby village of New Lanark early in the 19th Century.

The Hometown Foundation, a charitable trust established to help build new self-sustainable communities and regenerate rundown areas, has already secured the 2,000-acre site south of Lanark.

The new town would be self-sufficient, eco-friendly, run on co-operative principles and managed by its residents.

This will be a new and inspired modern version of Robert Owen's dream.

Houses for new residents would be built by the foundation then sold or rented with the profits being ploughed back into the local community.

The town would have its own farm and wind farm and a environmentally-friendly heating system powered by recycled waste.

Each household would have its own garden or plot of land in a community allotment.

There would also be schools, recreational facilities and opportunities for businesses and investors to set up offices and premises in the town.

The plans for Owenstown were unveiled by the trustees at New Lanark.

The chairman of the trustees of the new town, Dr Jim Arnold, who is also director of the world heritage site of New Lanark, said: "This will be a new and inspired modern version of Robert Owen's dream - a realisation of his ideals.

"Owen was ahead of his time and never fully achieved his ambition. It would be wonderful to realise the dream in 21st Century Scotland."

A public consultation process is now under way.

An exhibition detailing plans for the new town will be held in New Lanark from 1 - 3 September.

The next step would be a formal planning application to South Lanarkshire Council.

Robert Owen revolutionised New Lanark and was the founder of infant childcare in Great Britain, especially Scotland.

He was born on May 14th 1771 in Newtown, Wales.

During a visit to Glasgow in the early 1880s he fell in love with Caroline Dale, the daughter of the New Lanark mill's owner David Dale.

Through time Owen overhauled the mill, which previously had over 500 children brought in from poorhouses in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Owen built up a proper schooling system for the children, and his legacy remains to this day with a primary school in his name still working.